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The quantity of a fluid that crosses a unit area of a given surface in a unit of time.

A heavy wheel, or cross arms with weights at the ends on a revolving axis, to regulate or equalize the motion of machinery by means of its inertia, where the power communicated, or the resistance to be overcome, is variable, as in the steam engine or the coining press. See Fly wheel (below).

A foolish practice; an absurdity. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. 1 Cor. i. 18.

To pass or cross, as a river or other water, by wading; to wade through. His last section, which is no deep one, remains only to be forted. Milton.

A piece of timber placed across the stem, to unite the bows and strengthen the fore part of the ship; a breast hook.

or taking the altitudes of heavenly bodies, now superseded by the sextant; -- called also cross- staff. Brande & C.

Having a double meaning; ambiguous; equivocal. Cross forked (Her.), a cross, the ends of whose arms are divided into two sharp points; -- called also cross double fitché. A cross forked of three points is a cross, each of whose arms terminates in three sharp points. -- Forked counsel, advice pointing more than one way…

the branches terminating abruptly as if cut off; -- said of an ordinary, especially of a cross.

nd the East Indies, esp. P. medius of India. Some of the species are more than four feet across the outspread wings. See Fruit bat. -- Fox bolt, a bolt having a split end to receive a fox wedge. -- Fox brush (Zoöl.), the tail of a fox. -- Fox evil, a disease in which the hair falls off; alopecy. -- Fox grape (Bot.)…

Apt to break out into a passion; apt to scold; cross; snappish; ugly; unruly; as, a fractious man; a fractious horse.

Peevish; cross; vexatious; quarrelsome. [Obs.] Shak. Is Pompey grown so malapert, so frampel Beau. & Fl.

er injury by rubbing, as when the threads of the warp or of the woof wear off so that the cross threads are loose; to ravel; as, the cloth frays badly. A suit of frayed magnificience. tennyson.

A short piece of wire, or other material fixed across the finger board of a guitar or a similar instrument, to indicate where the finger is to be placed.

continuations of the rails, to guide the wheels where one track branches from another or crosses it.

A cross, old-fashioned person; esp., an old woman; a gossip. [Colloq.] Halliwell.

Cross-tempered; scornful. [Obs.]

ower part of the compound rib of a vessel; one of the crooked transverse timbers passing across and over the keel. Futtock plates (Naut.), plates of iron to which the dead-eyes of the topmast rigging are secured. -- Futtock shrouds, short iron shrouds leading from the upper part of the lower mast or of the main shroud…

A rebated cross, formerly used as a secret emblem, and a common ornament. It is also called gammadion, and swastika.

A lever to bend crossbows.

The Milky Way; that luminous tract, or belt, which is seen at night stretching across the heavens, and which is composed of innumerable stars, so distant and blended as to be distinguishable only with the telescope. The term has recently been used for remote clusters of stars. Nichol.